Chapter 9
“You cut your hair.”
She paused, holding the door open as Ben walked inside her small apartment.
“A quick trim, yeah. The girls talked me out of more.”
“Remind me to offer them a drink,” he said with a grin before toeing off his shoes. “It looks great. But it would be a shame to cut your hair. It’s gorgeous.”
Locking the door, she took advantage of the few seconds where she didn’t face him to let a pleased smile stretch her lips.
A girl liked a compliment every now and then.
“Can we eat in front of the TV? There’s a game.”
“Hum. Sure. It was either the couch or the kitchen, anyway. My apartment isn’t as huge as yours.”
“It’s cute, though. It’s… yeah, it’s kinda like you.”
Madison looked around her, trying to see her home sweet home through his eyes. The place was small, with no foyer. The front door led directly into her living room, which was composed of a sofa and TV on the right and a desk and some bookshelves on the left - where there would have been room for a dining table if she had wanted one.
One door led to her bedroom and bathroom, and a small hallway of barely three feet long led to her tiny kitchen.
Living in Manhattan was expensive as hell and even though her paycheck now could have allowed her to pay for a bigger place - or at least one with enough room to fit a dining table - she had never felt the urge to move. Her studio was comfy, maybe a little outdated, but she liked it that way.
“You mean small and old-looking?” she asked with a laugh.
“Nah. I mean welcoming and warm. Speaking of warm, this thing is fucking hot,” he added with a hiss, dropping the pizza box on the coffee table.
She got the bottle of red wine she had quickly bought at the liquor store down her street when he had texted her, as well as two glasses.
“I’m not great with red wine,” she warned as she handed him the bottle and a corkscrew, “but the guy said that it should do.”
Ben grinned, taking the bottle from her and peeling off the small metallic wrapper. “Wine and dine, then.”
“Well, I do have good manners. I couldn’t exactly let you drink tap water.”
“Somehow, I think I would have survived.”
There was a small pop as he opened the bottle. “Normally, you have to let the wine breathe a little. At least that’s what my grandfather always told me. But I figure we can deal with drinking it right away.”
She sat down on the couch next to him, handing him the remote control wordlessly. “I have no idea where the sports channels are,” she warned him before grabbing the pack of napkins from the basket underneath her coffee table.
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re prepared.”
“I like eating in front of the TV. What did you get us?”
“See for yourself.”
She was surprised to see he hadn’t gone with his favorite - pepperoni and sausage - but with what she had asked. “Thank you,” she said as she took a slice.
“Like a wise man once said, I aim to please.”
She froze, her mouth still open over the pizza she was just about to take a bite of. “You did not… you did not just quote Fifty Shades of Grey!”
Ben shrugged, chewing on the gigantic bite he had just taken. “You really think I didn’t read the shit out of those books after seeing all the chicks go crazy about them?”
She blinked. “Oh. Oh yeah, now that you mention it, of course you read them.”
“What I really wanted to know was if you had read them. Got my answer. Kinky Madison.”
“I went to see the movies with Harper.”
“And?”
“And do you see a red room in here?”
He took the time to look around him. “Well, for all I know, there is one behind that door,” he said, pointing toward her bedroom.
She slapped his arm, then took her first bite of pizza. “Shut up.”
The game he wanted to watch was hockey, a sport she knew nothing about. To be fair, the only sport she really liked was baseball. A little cliché for a statistician, but true nonetheless.
It was weird to have Ben in her apartment, sitting on her couch. Their relationship had really changed in the past six weeks or so. From acquaintances who belonged to the same circle of friends, they had become much closer. She now texted him as much as she texted Everleigh or Harper.
And, to be honest, occasionally even more. Ben was as prolific in texts as he was in person.
Sometimes, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was afraid of the silence.
“Chris and Ian were not available?” she eventually asked after her second slice.
“Ian was working. Chris just got back from a business trip, so I figured he was going to spend the night doing the dirty with the chick he only slept with to get pregnant even though she’s been pregnant for a while now.”
She snorted into her glass of wine. “Yeah, Evie was all giddy. Did you know that-” She paused, unsure if she should tell Ben.
“That she has a little bump?” he finished for her, tearing his eyes away from the TV. “Yeah. She looks adorable. Another reason why I knew it was pointless to ask him. He’s gonna be glued to her stomach until that kid pops out.”
“They’re gonna be great parents.”
Ben smiled, nodding slightly. “Yeah. They are. Which reminds me, I put an extra twenty on Everleigh saying it first.”
“Seriously??”
“Yeah. I read all about it. Hormones can make a woman go nuts. I think she’ll get mad at him somehow, then will yell it out or something.”
“Nah. She’s too tight-lipped. We’re very alike, and I know that if I had taken a chance on a boy and he had hurt me, there’s no way in hell I’d ever put myself out there. If he doesn’t man up, she won’t admit her feelings.”
“Has it happened to you?”
“What?” she asked, licking her lips and putting her glass back on the coffee table.
“A boy hurting you?”
She paused. “Yes. Of course… yes. That’s a part of life, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“You were never hurt? No girl ever broke your heart?”
He winced, a little sheepishly, before pulling on the lobe of his ear - his telltale sign that he was nervous or uncomfortable, she had discovered. “Ah. No. Not really. I never was with a girl that I really, truly… loved enough for her to hurt me, I guess. I mean, I’ve had my ego bruised, of course. But real heartache? Nope.”
It wasn’t exactly a surprise. He was a player, and she had always thought he had always been a player. There was no bitterness in his attitude, nothing that could give the hint that his behavior was the fruit of resentment. He just liked to charm and fool around.
Yet, he was anything but shallow, she was slowly finding out. His playboy persona was him, definitely. He wasn’t playing a role. But, at the same time, it was becoming obvious to her that it was only a façade. There was much more to him than met the eye.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Trying to figure you out.”
“I’m pretty easy to figure out.”
“I used to think so.”
He eyed her, then went back to his game. “Why does it sound like that wasn’t a compliment?”
“No. It’s just…” she trailed off, unsure of what she wanted to say exactly. Taking a few sips of wine for courage, she continued. “It’s Saturday night, Ben.”
“I do know that, Madison.”
She tilted her head at his sarcastic tone, waiting patiently.
Letting out a sigh, he eventually turned his head to face her. “And?” he prompted, with an exaggerated wave of his hand to ask her to continue.
“And you’re having pizza, watching a game of hockey, at my place, while you could have easily done that at yours. Or invited a girl over. Or… any of the dozens of things you’ve been doing ever since you’ve moved to New York.”
“I didn’t feel like going out or staying in,” he said, exhaling a long breath. “Happy?”
“Why?” she asked, ignoring his question. “You’ve been acting a little differently today. Is everything alright at work?”
“Everything is fine, and I’ve been acting exactly the same way.”
“No. IHOP? The self-defense class instead of your job? You don’t get to your level in your career by not having work as one of your top priorities. And then you text me to come over, which you’ve never done before.”
“If you didn’t want me to come over, you should have just said so,” he said in a hiss of breath.
Resting a hand on his arm, she shook her head. “No. I’m happy you’re here. Really. I know nothing about hockey, but I’m probably gonna dig out my phone and work on Candy Crush anyway. I’m just naturally curious and observant, Mister Ackerman,” she added teasingly to lighten the mood.
He gave her a small one-sided grin. “Yeah. I definitely noticed those two things about you.”
“So?”
He rested the back of his head against the couch, briefly closing his eyes. “IHOP was my mom’s favorite restaurant when she was a kid, and she always took me there on her birthdays. It was our thing. She would order-”
“Double blueberry pancakes and a glass of milk,” Madison finished for him, feeling her throat constrict suddenly. “Ben…”
“Yeah?” he whispered, turning his head to face her.
“Was today…”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Something twisted inside her heart at his admission. “I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know.”
“It’s OK. I don’t make a fuss out of it because… well, I never really had anyone to make a fuss with anyway. It just became a habit, you know? Unconsciously, every October 23rd, I have breakfast at IHOP. It’s… it’s just that.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But if you feel like it… I’d love to know about her.”
He gave her a small, sad smile, one that she had never seen on his face. It was so unlike him, that it almost felt like she was seeing a brand-new person.
“She died when I was ten.”
“You were just a boy,” she murmured. She almost wanted to touch him, offer him some silent support, but she wasn’t sure their relationship was there yet. She had also never been very comfortable with the whole touching and affection thing, even with her closest friends and parents. Instead, she turned to face him fully, trying to make him understand that he had her whole attention.
“My dad was a fucking asshole - he still is, even got worse. I don’t know what happened between them. They met in college. From what my grandparents told me before they passed away, they were OK the first year or so even though…” He exhaled, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “They got married because of me. I wasn’t planned, an accident during a school trip. From what I know, he started cheating on my mom when I was six months old. He never stopped. I remember seeing her cry the day before I started first grade. I was too young to understand back then, but it started to make sense much later. She was miserable the last few years of her life. She felt like divorce was out of the question. My dad wouldn’t have wanted to, and she didn’t want me to go through that. I would have preferred it if that meant her last years had been happy, you know?”
“Ben…”
He shook his head. “I like to make women happy, Madison. I like to make them laugh and smile. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. Just like it’s pretty obvious why I always go from one to another. I take after my father on that front.”
Something bothered her in that statement. “Have you ever cheated on someone?”
“No. Never stayed long enough with someone for it to happen.”
Then how do you know you’d be like him, she couldn’t help but think. Now wasn’t the moment to broach that particular topic, though.
“How did she…”
“Aneurysm. It was summer break. I woke up because she and my dad were fighting. I watched from the stairs, saw her dry her tears and try to smile at me. Then she went outside. We had a big yard behind our house, and she liked to go there and do some gardening. I didn’t know what to do. She always told me that grownups fight a lot, that it wasn’t my fault, and I shouldn’t get involved. Dad went to work. She still wasn’t back by lunchtime, so I made myself a sandwich with peanut butter and jelly. I watched cartoons all day, and I remember thinking it was fucking awesome because I could only watch TV for one hour a day normally. The house was dead silent every time I changed the videotape. I remember thinking how it was eerie to not hear her singing somewhere, or you know, just doing her usual mom thing? Telling me to clean my room, or to go play outside. Dad didn’t come back for dinner, and by then I started thinking it must have been a really bad fight for her to stay outside so long. So I went to look for her. She had been dead for a few hours from what the doctors told my dad. All I remember is that she seemed to be asleep.”
“I’m so sorry, Ben.”
“It’s OK. It was twenty years ago, now. Sometimes, it feels like forever.”
“But not today.”
He glanced at her. “Yeah… not today.”
He shifted on the couch, his fingers drumming over his jeans-covered thighs. It was pretty obvious Ben wasn’t used to opening up that way. She wasn’t judging, it was hard for her as well. They were oddly similar in a way, even if that similarity was expressed in two completely opposite ways.
To avoid serious topics, Ben would just chit chat and goof around, while she preferred to generally keep to herself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes fixed on her coffee table.
“For what?”
“We were having a good time and… well… that sucks.”
“That we were having a good time?” she asked teasingly.
The small grin on his lips made her feel warm inside. “You know, you could have just told me you didn’t know how to pass level 586, I wouldn’t have bothered you with it,” she continued, poking him in the arm.
“Please. I could do it in my sleep.”
“Sure, sure. I’m beginning to think you’re all talk, Mister Ackerman.”
“Me? All talk? I can walk the walk, Doctor Goldstein!”
She beamed at his use of her formal title. It wasn’t something she was overly snobby about. Just in her work life because her peers tended to be a little arrogant, and it was a good way to remind them that she was their equal - something they seemed to forget quite a lot, unfortunately. In her private life, though, it would have been a little obnoxious to use it.
Still. She liked that it came naturally to him. Her grandmother had once advised her not to tell men that she had a Ph.D. for fear of “intimidating them.” She had scoffed at the thought, but after a year, she was forced to realize she had been right. Men didn’t like to be reminded that a woman was their superior, in whatever aspect.
Ben, with all his macho talk and attitude, wasn’t like that.
“What?” he asked suddenly. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
She shrugged. “Most men don’t use my title.”
“Listen, if I had the brains and the drive to push my ass through a freaking Ph.D., I’d use the shit out of it. I’d probably have a plate engraved with it at the entrance of my office and on my desk. On my doorbell. On my credit cards. I might even go with an embroidered handkerchief. My parking spot in my building. My car plates. My freaking signature would probably mention it. I don’t think there is anyone in this damn city who wouldn’t know about Doctor Ackerman.”
She laughed. “You’re so full of yourself.”
“Yup. Glad you figured that one out. The second period is starting, can I get back to my game?”
“Be my guest.”
After another five minutes of not really paying attention, she eventually grabbed her phone, deciding to get through that level from hell all by herself, like the modern woman that she was. Ben let out a few swears and groans, but knowing his favorite team was probably losing didn’t derail her from her mission.
She was too focused on her own failure.
“Still stuck on it?” he eventually asked.
“Yes. Why did Harper make me download this stupid game, again?”
“Fuck if I know. Once she got everyone addicted, she stopped playing. Typical of her, though. Here, hold on,” he said, throwing the remote control on the coffee table and sliding closer to her. One arm went around her, the other gently prying the phone from her hands.
His forearm was heavy on her shoulder, but he didn’t seem to realize they were so close, all his attention now zeroing in on the game.
He smelled good, she noticed oddly. Soapy good, with his usual hint of cologne. Just a lingering peppery scent, too, not like that awful deo guys in college used to drench themselves in.
“You have to move your hazelnut as soon as you can or… or you’re screwed.”
“I realized that quite early on.”
“Damn, I hate the levels with the hazelnuts.”
“Me too.”
“Fuck. Sorry,” he grumbled when he failed. Polishing off his wine, he sat back more comfortably on the couch, abandoning her. “Here, send yourself an extra life,” he added distractingly, handing her his own phone after unlocking it.
“You trust me with your phone?”
He snorted. “Worst case scenario, you send my dick pics to all my contacts, and I think 90% of them already saw them anyway.”
“Ew.”
“But by all means, go take a look in my picture gallery. I could use your opinion on the filter I used for the last one. I think black and white makes it look bigger than sepia.”
She paused, wondering if maybe she should sanitize her hands after touching his phone. “Are you serious?”
“No, Madison. I’m teasing you.” He chortled, shaking his head.
“Ugh. I was about to dig out my hand sanitizer and-”
“There’s no way my dick fits on such a tiny frame, now come on.”
She closed her eyes, amused exasperation seeping through each of her words. “One of these days, my empiric brain is going to ask you to walk the walk, Mister Ackerman.”
“I can’t wait, Doctor Goldstein.”